Vaandeldrager 1529 - 1610

Editor: So, this is "Vaandeldrager," created sometime between 1529 and 1610. It's an anonymous piece, found in the Rijksmuseum, done as an engraving. There’s almost a comic roughness to the lines, but this man…he looks so serious and proud. What echoes do you hear from this image? Curator: Echoes, yes. He carries more than just a flag. The standard-bearer is a potent symbol – a container of ideals, almost a human reliquary, entrusted with cultural memory. Consider the wild game he also carries; a more primitive prize suggesting more basic societal drivers, that predate symbolic representation, namely sustenance and survival. Note, too, the strange image on the tree next to him. What does it remind you of? Editor: A crest, maybe? Or a brand of some kind? Curator: Precisely. It speaks to the individual’s association with something larger – be it family, guild, or state. A visual reminder of an individual's cultural role. It provides a social echo to the central figure in the print. What do you suppose someone looking at this image 400 years ago would have felt, seeing that crest? Editor: Pride, perhaps, or kinship… or maybe the opposite, exclusion. I see what you mean about cultural memory; those symbols create powerful links. Curator: And see how his costume reflects rank and cultural value at once! A lot of this is echoed today, in our flags, and insignias and emblems. We might not be charging into battle, but we're still carrying those old ideals forward in modern ways. Editor: So much history encoded in one image! I’ll definitely look at symbols differently now. Curator: Agreed, the image itself is like a container of meanings, and seeing them can change how you understand the world around you.